Stay fit so you can have your cake and eat it too!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Soon all the bloggers, Instagramers, Facebookers, Pinners, and the like will be hosed down in orange. Pumpkin will be oozing from every social media outlet we encounter. Starbucks will be pumping out pumpkin spice lattes like Arnold Schwarzenegger pumps iron. So if pumpkin everything is such a popular flavor, why keep it exclusive to fall?? It’s August, 100 degrees out, and pumpkin is on my mind.

When I think of making macro friendly treats, the top three flavors for me are Pumpkin, Chocolate or Peanut butter. All three of these lend a flavorful, moist treat. Moist, being the key word here. I find that when I want a higher protein, low sugar, macro friendly snack, it’s difficult to get them to be moist. They end up being dry, dense, hockey pucks. Not really a desirable outcome. But when you add pumpkin it adds just the right amount of texture and moistness with out having to add fats or sugars.

I wanted to make some pumpkin muffins for this weekend and started out with a basic muffin recipe. First batch came out a bit dry and bland. So for the second batch added more pumpkin puree and chocolate chips. Let’s face it, everything is a little better with chocolate. Plus adding the extra pumpkin made it nice and moist, like a traditional muffin!

Make them and enjoy the last of these beautiful summer mornings!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 1/2 cups Kodiak Cake Power Cake Mix

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

1 scoop (25g) NLA for Her Vanilla Cupcake Protein

2/3 cup pumpkin puree

1/3 cup liquid egg whites

3/4 cup almond milk

2 tbsps. Joseph’s Sugar Free Maple Syrup

1/3 cup Lily’s Dark Chocolate Chips

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 350°. Line a 12 cup muffin tin with parchment paper baking cups. In a medium bowl combine all dry ingredients together. Use a whisk to sift them together. In another medium bowl whisk together all wet ingredients. Mix until thoroughly combined. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, mix until just combined. Gently fold in chocolate chips.

Divide batter evenly into the 12 cups. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Do not overbake or they will be dry!! Check at 15 minutes; if they still need to bake longer do so at 1-2 minute intervals until baked through. Once done, remove from oven and immediately (and carefully because they’re hot!!) remove muffins from muffin tin and cool on a wire rack.